Sunday, August 24, 2008

­7 Reasons Why KDE Sucks

­7 Reasons Why KDE SucksWell, my experience with KDE is limited to Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 so this list is Kubuntu specific. I have read good thing about Kubuntu 4.1 and would love to try it out when Ibex comes out. Still you can’t deny that Gnome is far better (or useable) than KDE.1. Obsession over K: All KDE developers have a stupid K fetish. If you take a look at KDE software, you’d notice that most if not all software's begin with the letter K. It gets frustrating to see the letter ‘K’ staring at you every where, you see- K-menu, Kaffine, K3B and in places where it is not used as the initial letter they capitalize it just to highlight its presence as in AmaroK. ‘K’ isn’t the sweetest alphabet. So sticking a ‘K’ in front of every name won’t make it sound cool like iPods and iPhones. Hell, if KDE developers had it on themselves they would rename our country to AmeriKa and our Earth to Kearth!2. Too many options: KDE has way too many options. Sure customizations are all good and nice, but there has to be some limit to it. I don’t want to be presented with truckload of options while changing the wallpaper. Take a look on ‘Configure Konqueror’ option in Konqueror-the default browser for KDE. Any Linux newbie would be blown away with the obscene amount of customization options. Ever tried Nero or Opera and found it a bit bloated? Well ,try KDE and you will never call Nero bloated again. Here are 2 snapshots which tell the whole story. One id from Konqueror and the other from K3B (KDE Nero).3. Adept isn’t Synaptic: If you have been used to Synaptic, Adept would seem too lag a bit behind. Neither does it show the size of packages being downloaded nor does it show the other dependencies being marked. How the hell am I supposed to know how much am I downloading? Would it hurt to add Synaptic instead of Adept?4. KDE doesn’t necessarily come with the best softwares: KDE developers choose softwares on the basis whether or not they have an integral ‘K’ in it rather than the quality of software. So you will find softwares like Konqueror make the cut over Firefox, Kopete is the default IM client in place of Pidgin. Kopete doesn’t even have Gtalk protocol. Konqueror is fast but it doesn’t load all web pages, it has problems displaying even Gmail.[Note: As Shaswat righty said, Kopete does indeed support Gmail, It is in the Jabber part. Still I wish they'd rename it Gmail.]

5. Pick one either Dolphin or Konqueror: As most of you know KDE uses both Konqueror and Dolphin for file navigation. This becomes confusing. Pick one and stick to it. Although Dolphin has one cool feature by which you can navigate as the root without doing any sudo thing.6. Konfusing: Over all KDE is one of the most confusing systems to try out. Linux newbies and noobs will be pissed off by the level of stupid customizations. No wonder Canonical concentrates mainly on Ubuntu (Kubuntu is the long lost brother).

7. The Wallet: Am I the only one or are you with me on this one. In Konqueror if you save password for some website, this 'wallet' password pops up and in order to save the password you have to type another password in the wallet. Hell! Imagine doing this for each and every website which asks for password. Sure some might argue that it is a security feature, but wait, which is more prone to password theft, typing the password once or doing it two times and giving others two opportunities to take a peek at what you are typing?I hope KDE 4.1 is far better than 3.5 and I’m willing to plunge into KDE once more when Intrepid Ibex comes over.

4. I think you have less knowledge .. Kopete does have option for Gmail .. i.e. Jabber Email Client provide access to Gmail..KDE has less powerful application ! ? OMG .. Do you still have any alternate to Amarok, K3b, Konqueror, KDE control Center and all that customization part !

5/ openSUSE dropped KDE ? Have you gone nuts ? KDE is and will be their default DE ! and as far as Gnome goes they have just started supporting Gnome !

Well you are not the only one with similar thoughts ! When I started using Linux [Gnome DE] I too thought KDE sucks and blah blah.. But all you need is to get used to it ! Its easier than gnome any day.. The Control Center and concrete application base makes KDE the best and top notch DE..

Gnome is a great DE but you just can't say that one sucks.. Every one is better and believe me KDE 4.1 + will rock the pants off.. Just check the plasma theme and development going on..

Now don't think I am a KDE fanboy .. I currently use Gnome .. and waiting for a new revamped OS [with KDE 4.x] .. I have written lots of Gnome Customization guide

Thanx exsecrabilus!Thanx to you Shashwat too!I read it some where that Suse dropped KDE, I'll check that soon.Could you help me with the Kopete part? I could see, ICQ, MSN and few others, but no Gmail :(

I used Synaptic to look for any package named "Adept". Couldn't find any, not a one. Oh, I'm using KDE. Do you realize how ridiculous that makes you look in my eyes? Wallet? I don't use it. My distro came with Firefox as the default browser. As a matter of fact, of all the distros I have used or tested, only one (DSL) didn't have Firefox as the default browser. Konqueror is a good browser but I prefer Firefox. With one exception. One day I found I could no longer access my bank account on-line. They changed something and Firefox wouldn't work. So I used the browser identification ability in Konqueror and bingo, it worked. I was very grateful for that. What's nice about Konqueror's browser identification is that it's site specific and not simply an on/off switch like the plug-in available in Firefox.

KDE has a lot of choice. The nice thing about choice is that you can chose what you want and leave the rest. Are you the spokesman for the noobs? I don't remember voting for you. I was a noob once and just as soon as I figured out how to do it, I switched to KDE. My computing life improved immediately. I don't have a problem with Gnome as long as I have a choice to use KDE. If you prefer Gnome, great. KDE isn't doing anything to hurt you.

Where TF does it say it's a joke you AH! If it's a joke but nobody sees that it's a joke then IT'S NOT A JOKE. If you have to tell people it's a joke then it's NOT A JOKE. With all the flaming going on between Windows/Linux, Gnome/KDE, it's really f*cking stupid to "pretend" to be flaming an issue. I have a life but apparently you have yet to find yours.

Sure, you've made some valid points, but honestly, I LIKE KDE's multitude of options for everything, choice is why I left Windows in the first place. Konqueror is a stable browser (but I do prefer FF), and in the distributions where it is default, it is so to reduce overall size and bloat.

I didn't read the article, but I thoroughly enjoyed the pattern dithering on your KDE screen shots. They gave me flashbacks to my C64 days when I would print porn on my 9 pin dot-matrix color printer. I wouldn't get laid until years later.

Well, I'm sorry to say I cannot agree with some of your points. First of all, since when does "all the apps have a K in their name" count as a point against or in favour of anything? Makes it sound like you didn't know what else to say...And second, as a Linux newbie (I do, however, use KDE, Gnome and even Xfce relatively often) I love -not detest or hate, LOVE- the amount of customizability. I mean, c'mon, you can always leave it as it is if you don't feel like trying the different options. As soon as you think "right I'm gonna start playing around with this" I believe it is actually better to have more options.

Having said all this, I do use Gnome more often, so I don't think I can be considered a KDE fanboy.

Your blog looked decent until I came across this post. This single post has clearly defined your knowledge and understanding of Linux. You obviously don't have all your facts straight.

#1 - So? At least it's consistent. Gnome does this too. Gnumeric, gedit, gnomine, gnopernicus, gok, grecord, gcalctool, gconf-editor, gthumb, gnucash, Gournal, gparted... I think I see a pattern here. The major difference is that KDE is (k)onsistent.

#2 - Gnome has just as many configuration options as KDE. In KDE I can use a graphical interface with clearly defined options. In Gnome to change some of the more obscure options you have to dig through gconf-editor, very much akin to window's registry if you ask me.

#3 - No it isn't. I actually agree with you on this one. Adept is not very intuitive.

#4 - Personal opinion? I've been connected to gtalk for at least three years with Kopete. I've also had cam2cam conversations which pidgin can not do. When it comes to web browsers it doesn't take much to realize that cutting out any unneeded software on a live cd is in the best interest of the distro. Konqueror comes with KDE by default, why load firefox onto the live cd?

#5 - You must have completely missed the boat on this one. Dolphin is a new application intended to separate Konqueror as a web browser. This was written for the pure intent to replace Konqueror as the file browser in the KDE 4 series.

#6 - Your own opinion. I personally found Gnome to be more confusing the first time I used it. A menu bar instead of a menu. A drop down menu of configuration applications instead of a central location for all settings.

#7 - The KDE Wallet is a bit obnoxious when you first begin using it. However, when you log into your desktop you only have to type in your password once, then all other applications that require passwords are taken care of. On top of that all passwords are encrypted. I would chalk up your rant as a personal opinion yet again.

As it appears to me you haven't taken the time to understand KDE. You haven't taken the time to learn it. You are obviously afraid of that which you do not understand.

You seemed to have a lot of issues with Konqueror. Thats too bad really because it is an extremely powerful application.Here are a few things Konqeuror can do that Nautilus can not:

Protocols:fish:// - graphical connection to ssh serversaudiocd:// - drag and drop encoding of your audio cd to flac, ogg, mp3, ...iso:// - Browse and copy data from an ISO image.man:/ - displays nicely formatted man pagesprint:// - browse your installed printers and do other printer maintenance.media:// - allows you to browse storage devices connected to your machine. applications:// - Shows all applications in a finder style like OS X.And how about Konqueror's tabbed browsing. This is one main reason I don't use Gnome. I like the Gnome panels much more than KDE's kicker, but I detest having multiple copies of Nautilus running.

When it comes right down to it this post is rather unfortunate. Your blog had a good thing going and then you run off and flame 40% of the Linux user base. I'll be sure to write up 7 reasons as to why your blog sucks.

@ Anonymous.You are correct in many ways. However I believe I definately haven't been baised.1. I use Ubuntu as many Linux users do. In Ubuntu there are very few applications shipped in by default which start with G or have a G in them. As compared to this Kubuntu has the 'K' prominently smeared across it.2. Gnome might have advanced options, but they are dug beneath the gconf-editor. You don't get tons of options silly options to choose from. When I first used Konqueror, I took 15 min just to find out where was the damn option to turn images off!3.Glad you agreed.4. I won't lie, I have started to use Linux recently. I'm only 17 yr old :)So I guess this blog is more useful for Linux newbies. Somebody in the comment had clarified it already. But still, why not name it Gmail, instead of something else? About Firefox, These guys use obsene amount of compression. OOo weighs in 200 MB! Do you honestly believe they cannot fit in 7 MB Firefox?5. As I said I am a new user and Dolphin and Konqueror both pop up at different times, making it konfusing!6.Gnome is Simple.7.KDE Wallet sucks! Any self respecting browser has its own password saving option. I need no wallet.8. I will definitely try Kubuntu on Ibex, promise! Nautilus will have tabs in new version.Hope you read this thing, do tell me if you did!

0) What's the problem with the K? I can easily tell which apps are KDE's and which aren't, why change that?

1) Gnome has too few options. I like choices so I love KDE, you don't like choices? Use Gnome, but don't bash KDE for that. I don't like Gnome but I don't go about telling people it is crap (because it isn't, it is good but it doesn't suit __me__).

2) Adept sucks big balls. Adept is not KDE, it's Canonical.

3) Firefox is, in my opinion, the second worst browser right after Internet Explorer. It sucks up your memory really bad. Besides, KDE already comes with Konqueror, why include yet another browser?

4) I take it you are talking about D3lphin and not Dolphin (which is a KDE4 app). D3lphin is just a KDE3 port of Dolphin. In KDE4 Dolphin is the default file manager and Konqueror is the default browser, unlike KDE3. But thanks Canonical again for including D3lphin...

5) I find Gnome confusing. Again, your rant is just a matter of taste and not a real problem.

6) KWallet is great, I only need to remember one password. All my other passwords are encrypted inside the wallet. Any self respecting browser has its own password saving option? Yeah, it's called KWallet! Why have 2 apps that do the same thing if you can have only one? KWallet stores all the passwords. I take it you use Firefox's password saving feature and Gnome keyring... isn't that stupid? Having two apps doing the same thing?

Well, you gave me 7 reasons to say you suck, but unlike you I will also add that this is my biased opinion and not a fact.

I appreciate many of your useful posts and tutorials ; but it seems that your review of KDE might have been influenced.

As another comment (from Shahwat) says : "Kubuntu" is clearly the worst KDE distro ever released". The facts reveal that the team behind Kubuntu have heavily altered many things changing the behaviour of the KDE desktop.

The KDE team, as lots of people giving their leisure time to writing free software seemed to me very open to end-users requests like those I made myself.

Strangely, lots of these features users wanted have been REMOVED by people behind Kubuntu.

Maybe you could have a try with a "clean" KDE desktop from a DEBIAN TESTING issue or a SIDUX live CD.

"I don’t want to be presented with truckload of options while changing the wallpaper" -> Right click on desktop, choose image as wallpaper type and select a wallpaper from dropdown menu...are these truckload of options? Bull!

"Adept isn’t Synaptic" -> If you dont know that Adept is not part of KDE but a shitty distro by name kubuntu then throw your computer over board to the ocean.

"So you will find softwares like Konqueror make the cut over Firefox" -> WTF, firefox is not the default browser in any desktop environment on earth.

"Linux newbies and noobs will be pissed off by the level of stupid customizations" -> Grow up, child. Not all linux users end up being noobs.

"OpenSUSE too dropped KDE" -> Fell from my chair laughing. I'm writing this comment on the latest opensuse with latest KDE 4.1.3. Infact, now opensuse is one of the few distros that offer both KDE3 and KDE4.

- The same Anonymous of last post.

P.S- I'm 18, so what?! Dont think that you can write whatever shit you want just because you're a teenager.

@ Dear Anonymous:1. About K you just gave shit about my opinion, thankyou.2. Read the article completely, I have mentioned that my experience is mainly based on Kubuntu. 3. Try opening Gmail in Konqueror. If it does then stop using the html version and switch to the standard verion.4. Even ardent lovers of KDE accept the fact that kDE contains waay to many options than required. P.S- I'm 18, so what?! Dont think that you can write whatever shit you want just because you're a teenager.Yup! :P

1: not all kde applications start with a K, furthermore: other projects also use somekind of prefix for their software, like Microsoft putting Windows in front of every application, lots of gtk-applications start with a G, Linspire prefixing their applicationc with a L, Apple using the i as prefix, etc..

2: take a look at firefox: it also contains lots of options. Actually even more than konqueror if you add [about:plugins].

3: Adapt isn't a KDE application. It uses KDE, and Kubuntu uses it as package manager. But that means that kubuntu sucks, not kde.

4: That is like blaming Sun that StarOffice isn't shipped with MS Word in stead of OOwriter, or blaming Microsoft that they aren't shipping Firefox. Software projects only ship the software they develop. So KDE ships kopete, and the Pidgin Project ships Pidgin. You as user can download and install the software you like.

5: as user, you usually stick with one of them for filemanagement. Only pre kde4 users know about konqueror being capable of filemanagement too. Novice users aren't confronted with it, or don't notice it.

6: you didn't back that one up with anything substancial.

7: you can use the wallet without a password, or not at all if you don't like the passport management.

As I said in a previous comment, I am a linux newbie.I tried out both kde 4 (on kubuntu and mandriva) and Gnome.Gnome is way faster on my machine, and way more stable, so it;s y choice for the time being.

KDE is the most beautiful and the *only* usable DE out there...I just can not imagine replacing Amarok, Dolphin, K3B with any other app...Nobody can beat it... KDE 3.5 r0cked... and KDE 4.1 is r0cking... Hats 0ff for KDE...

"Sure some might argue that it is a security feature, but wait, which is more prone to password theft, typing the password once or doing it two times and giving others two opportunities to take a peek at what you are typing?"

I missed this one, so consider this as the third paragraph in my comment above for #7:

You have the option to type your password only once and from then on you just allow or deny any app that wants to access the wallet.

You really need to research and think more about what you write.

Don't give me that noob excuse. Everyone was once a noob, but not everyone was a stupid noob like you are. A smart noob would ask how to get around certain problems and not bash about them. Unfortunately you don't see the seven issues above as solvable problems.

#1 - I don't like that but GNOME does it too. However no excuse for KDE to do such stupid things.

#2 - Main problem is that many of them are useless or configure KDE internal things that the user wants nothing to do with.

#5 - Yeah, Konqueror should just to web browsing. Good example of useless feature which of there are plenty in KDE.

#6 - This is a result of all the unnecessary features and config options.

#7 - The wallet is basically a good idea. However it should never ask for a wallet password and if and application should have access or not! Again, good example of useless features in KDE.

I have written about the usability problems on my blog, see http://www.surban.net/wordpress/?p=3

I really can't understand why so many people shout GNOME fanboy. It is true that KDE has several usability issues. Why else did nearly every distribution switch their default desktop to GNOME and left KDE behind? The developers should stop ignoring these problems NOW and focus on fixing these things instead of adding more and more (partly useless) features!

I think your review is shallow, at the best. KDE is glorious, and i stick with it since 2005. I agree KDE 4 is not par to the functionality and stability of 3.5 series, but it is still young. If you would use it more, you would get acquainted with the nice system it is. You see, to do a working desktop, in a business environment, KDE is the fastest and easiest way. But then again, you choosed Kubunt, one distro thats very controversial. Get a Mandriva or a Suse one and try them. You will see KDE with other eyes.Best regards from Brazil, a country that loves the penguin .

and one more:KDE is not sucks.The distro that comes with it sucks.i installed KDE-Core from ubuntu minimal cd and configure everything by my self,from file manager replacement and it is still fast without all the bloatings.

get your facts straight.KDE offer too much customization and in its original form,it is much lighter.I think what you want to say is Kubuntu sucks,not KDE :)

KDE 4.2 has came and still a hug see of bugs!:DI don't know what exactly their doning in KDE team. I just cleaned my hard of it!I could not open or create any archive because of ARKI could not move my mouse cursor sometimes!I could not see my panel sometimes!I could not ....

Hmm well Kubuntu is pretty terrible...I started Linux with it and wanted to quit after about a week of frustration. Tons of bugs and, as you mentioned, poor selection of default software. I recommend openSuse for KDE newbies, it's much more user-friendly I think. I went from Kubuntu to Ubuntu, and back to Kubuntu when I learned some more and finally to openSuse. No regrets, KDE > Gnome for me and openSuse is one of the best KDE distros out there. Give it a shot.

Don't have anything against KDE, I guess it is a preference thing,,but I use Gnome. To me it is just cleaner looking than KDE and of course less bloated, but like a lot out there I have tried out many distros but have settled down a while with Ubuntu.

I completely agree, KDE just straight up blows. It's unstable, cluttered, and practically unusable for anything other than a toy. Kopete constantly crashes and this little bug buddy thing pops up all the time. The layout of everything is un-intuitive. At least gnome is stable enough to where you can actually get something done on it.

I am forced to completely agree with you on most of your points and several you didn't make. (Theses are mostly about KDE 4.3)

Here are a few others: 1 - KDE developers ignore important bugs to pursue new wallpapers and adding more stupid options to things. I was a KDE tester for a few years and finally got sick of it and left, because it would take them 2 days to add a feature and 2 years to fix a bug.

2 - KDE is unstable...a lot of the applications crash quite a bit. Ktorrent, Kopete, Kwin, etc. When some of them crash you are left with an unusable interface and are forced to kill X or reset. Overall I would rate the quality of their final releases lower than the quality of Google or Microsoft's early alphas. And that's coming from a die hard Linux fan. This is probably most attributable to their failure to take bug reports seriously.

3 - KDE has some nice features but a large number of them don't work most of the time. For example the ability to install MacOS widgets on the desktop. (Widget addition in general has been broken for about the least year...the bugs are being ignored, as usual.)

4 - KDE duplicates the functionality of many many programs for no good reason and ends up doing a shitty job on it. (Probably because other projects/developers refuse to rename their programs things that start with "K".) Examples include the web browser, instant messenger, and sound system.

5 - KDE's main user interface guideline seems to be to copy both Windows and Mac at the same time. Where Gnome has an interface that is simpler and easier to use than either Windows or Mac, KDE's interface seems to take all the worst parts of both and put them all into one.

6 - The main KDE programs are very poorly integrated. So badly in fact that they cause strange things to happen. For example, playing a movie in Dragon Player and then closing it will leave the screen saver activated even if you didn't have it activated in the control panel.

I gave up completely on KDE years ago with 3.5. My most recent experience was a recent trial with KDE 4.3.1 as my primary DE. While I was blown away with its beauty at first, it didn't take me long to realize that underneath it was the same buggy old software I'd used years earlier. I don't care if you call me a Gnome fanboy or what. But software as mature (read old) as KDE should not be this shitty. If the KDE team worked for me and created software of this quality for my company, I would take them all out and have them beaten, fired, and replaced.

The only thing that I hate in KDE is the jerky and choppy performance in it's animations and kWin actions, well mainly because I have an nVidia card, and so on, the shitty performance in its drivers; this unified to the relatively new code in kWin, made it's performance to suck very bad, and then many things does not work properly. I don not question the quality of software of KDE apps, that is the case is it much better than GNOME ones in a lot of ways, but there are factors like the recent kWin code, the motherfuckerinzing well known performance with fucking nVidia privative drivers; that makes KDE suck bad... different form that circumstances I believe that KDE is very good and superior in GNOME in pretty much things.

I too have tried Linux Mint 9 KDE. The blue theme was very attractive but unfortunently Linux Mint KDE was a let down as I found it very slow and also my built in microphone did not work on KDE and I could not fix this. I did try with KDE but it still did not run as well as Linux Mint 9 Gnome the main edition of Linux Mint. Needless to say I was quite dissapointed in this and so I uninstalled Linux Mint KDE. Andrea Borman.

I have tried Linux Mint KDE 2 days ago now I am starting to get used to Linux and have started to master it. In the hope that I would now be able to use it but I still cannot get it to work for me. I have noticed on Linux Mint 9 Gnome and 10 Julia that you can change your account settings to custom or administer where you can do anything on the system. Administer is not to be confused with Root or Administer account in Windows. well it seems on Linux Mint KDE there is no such account control.And when I restarted my computer I got an absured message no sudo user and when I tried to install software it said "you are starting without administer privilages you will not be able to install anything". I do not understand this as I logged in with my correct user name and password. Also a lot of existing software did not work. Linux Mint KDE is a big disapointment.So I uninstalled it again. Andrea Borman